Thursday, March 1, 2012

HELENA — Chief U.S. District Judge Richard Cebull on Wednesday
admitted to sending a racially charged email about President Barack
Obama from his courthouse chambers.Cebull,
of Billings, was nominated by former President George W. Bush and
received his commission in 2001 and has served as chief judge for the
District of Montana since 2008.The
subject line of the email, which Cebull sent from his official
courthouse email address on Feb. 20 at 3:42 p.m., reads: "A MOM'S
MEMORY."
The forwarded text reads as follow:
"Normally
I don't send or forward a lot of these, but even by my standards, it
was a bit touching. I want all of my friends to feel what I felt when I
read this. Hope it touches your heart like it did mine.
"A
little boy said to his mother; 'Mommy, how come I'm black and you're
white?'" the email joke reads. "His mother replied, 'Don't even go there
Barack! From what I can remember about that party, you're lucky you
don't bark!'"
Cebull admitted Wednesday to sending the email to seven recipients, including his personal email address.
The
judge acknowledged that the content of the email was racist, but said
he does not consider himself racist. He said the email was intended to
be a private communication.
"It was not intended by me in
any way to become public," Cebull said. "I apologize to anybody who is
offended by it, and I can obviously understand why people would be
offended."
Cebull said his brother initially sent him the email, which he forwarded to six of his "old buddies" and acquaintances.
He admitted that he read the email and intended to send it to his friends.
"The
only reason I can explain it to you is I am not a fan of our president,
but this goes beyond not being a fan," Cebull said. "I didn't send it
as racist, although that's what it is. I sent it out because it's
anti-Obama."
Travis McAdam, executive director for the
Montana Human Rights Network , said the email contained highly racist
rhetoric unbecoming of a federal judge.
"It's one thing if
the judge is not a fan of President Barack Obama, but you would think
someone in his position would articulate that in a way that criticizes
his policy decisions or his position on issues," McAdam said. "We have a
hard time believing that a legitimate criticism of the president
involves distributing a joke that basically compares African Americans
with animals."

Cebull said he does not consider himself prejudice against people of
other races or ethnic backgrounds, and that his actions in his courtroom
have demonstrated that.
"I have never considered myself
that way," Cebull said. "All I can emphasize is I've treated people in
my courtroom all these years fairly. I don't think I've ever
demonstrated racism. Nobody has ever even implied it."
Montana
immigration attorney Shahid Haque-Hausrath was on the receiving end of a
racially charged email sent by a top Immigrations and Customs
Enforcement official last fall. That official was suspended after
sending Haque-Hausrath an email implying that Muslim Americans must
prove their allegiance to the United State.
Haque-Hausrath,
who is in an interracial marriage and recently fathered a child with
his wife, said Cebull's e-mail was "deeply troubling."
"Another
federal official who is entrusted to do his duties fairly and
impartially has yet again sent an email from his work account during
work hours that espouses deeply racist and bigoted views,"
Haque-Hausrath said. "The reason why I think it's so troubling, is it
espouses the deeply racist view that interracial sex is equivalent to
bestiality. For a federal judge to be equating the two, and say since
Barack Obama is of mixed racial background, that his mother was somehow
committing acts of bestiality is incredibly racist and troubling.
One
of the recipients of the email Cebull sent forwarded it to another
person, who in turn forwarded it to another person. The email was
eventually pass along to the Great Falls Tribune, who contacted Cebull.
Cebull said he was surprised the recipients of the e-mail passed it
along with his name on it.
"This is a private thing that
was, to say the least, very poor judgment on my part," Cebull said. "I
did not forward it because of the racist nature of it. Although it is
racist, I'm not that way, never have been."